Hillsdale Arts ChoraleChorus celebrates life with memorial concert

Thursday

Feb 28, 2013 at 8:27 AM

By Nancy Hastings

nancy.hastings@hillsdale.netHILLSDALE — The Hillsdale Arts Chorale will perform the third concert of their 40th Anniversary Season Sunday.The concert, at 3 p.m., will be held in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hillsdale and will feature the performance of John Rutter’s "Requiem." A reception will follow the concert.“With the performance of this beloved choral work with instrumentation, the Arts Chorale celebrates the life and passing of founding conductor and music director Howard Rizner, who led the chorale for 35 years prior to his death in 2012,” Executive Director Greg Bailey said.The Chorale will also acknowledge the passing of the following former members: Carol Ann Barker, Wanda Briggs, Beth Herbener-Hoffman, Sandra Spike, Denver Bechtol, L.A. James, Gordie Gray, Ed Nofz and Richard Kneen.Bailey said John Rutter’s "Requiem" is regarded as his greatest contribution to the world of serious choral music. Written in 1985, the work was dedicated to the memory of Rutter's father, who had died the previous year. A requiem mass is from the Roman Catholic tradition and is a service to celebrate and commemorate the life of someone who has died. It is sometimes called a “Mass for the Dead.”By the 1980s, Protestant composers freely mixed traditional Latin with more worldly English in classical choral writing of this kind, Bailey said.“Although John Rutter said that he was greatly influenced by the beautiful writing of the French composer Gabriel Faure, whose Requiem is still widely performed, he expanded the traditional sections of his Requiem to include Psalm-based choral writing on texts frequently included in Anglican funeral services,” Bailey said.These include “Out of the Depths” from Psalm 130 featuring a cello solo and the familiar Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”The first section of "Requiem" to be completed and performed was the 1976 choral piece later inserted into the mass, “The Lord Is My Shepherd.” John Rutter himself conducted the first two performances of the full Requiem in May and October of 1985 in the United States at two churches in Dallas, Texas.“In 'Requiem’s' seven distinct sections, we hear both contemplative and brighter sections emphasizing prayers for the deceased and assurance of eternal light,” Bailey said. “The audience will revel in the beautiful writing for chorus, the soaring lines for soprano soloist (Britta Peterson) and the special colors in the writing for organ, harp, percussion and winds (Kristi Gautsche, organ; Caresse Boyers, harp; Jeff Szekely and Alexander Boswell, percussion; Jacob Martin, oboe; Kirsten Hall, flute, and Victor Rozsa, cello). Current music director and conductor of the Hillsdale Arts Choral, David Boswell, looks forward to sharing this “beautiful work” with the community and the musicians.“It’s an exceptional piece of music that can be done with an instrumental ensemble,” Boswell said. “We are very fortunate to have access to players who are local or not too far away and some are from Hillsdale College as well.”Concluding the concert will be an arrangement by Paul Christiansen of the hymn-based composition written by Franklin L. Shepherd, first performed at the Henderson Kentucky Choral Festival in 1981. The original hymn version of “This is My Father’s World” was sung by members of the Arts Chorale at the interment of Howard Rizner’s last year in Hillsdale.Coming up at 3 p.m. April 28, the Arts Chorale will present its 40th Anniversary Alumni Concert at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Former chorale members have been invited to join the current singers in selected pieces and will share both music and memories with each other.